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While there has been all kinds of exciting comics news coming out of the San Diego Convention Center (Ed Piskor’s take on the X-Men, Arkham Asylum 2, a pair of Donny Cates projects at Marvel, the Euro-sized Mature Readers imprint at DC, etc…), we won’t get to hear the bulk of the movie-related surprises that are coming until Saturday’s big Hall H presentations that feature both Warner Bros. and Marvel Studios.

For what it’s worth, I expect the DC side of things to drop a couple of bigger bombs probably, as Marvel had some of its ammo split up between this show and last weekend’s D23. But yesterday afternoon saw a few gears turning already on the big screen comics adaptation front:

According to reports at The Wrap and other outlets, the next DC movie to follow Aquaman on the shooting schedule will be Shazam!, with filming to begin in February of next year. Lights Out! director David Sandberg will be directing the film that is aimed for a 2019 release. According to the report, Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam feature is still set as a spin-off of the film, but it’s unclear if he’ll still be appearing in Shazam!. The project one of two DC related films that will be presumably be released that year, with the other still to be determined (though I’d hazard a guess that Matt Reeves’ The Batman is a good contender for the other slot).

I was in attendance at the Legion panel yesterday, and while it was largely a snooze, Noah Hawley did reveal to the crowd that he’s developing a Doctor Doom movie at Fox. A curious development indeed, as this is the first anyone has heard of such a project, and it seemed as if the Fantastic Four was dead in the water at the studio for the time being. There’s something very Venom-esque about the idea, with a studio trying to get a villain-led spinoff onto screens before they can get the flagship hero right first. But then again, Hawley is brilliant and spearheaded one of the best X-Men related adaptations we’ve seen in Legion, big screen or small, so I’ll be there with bells on.

More to come! Hall H’s biggest presentation is right around the corner and I have no doubt that there will at least be an item or two worth talking about.

Entertainment Editor for The Beat covering film, television and the occasional comic book. His work can also be found at GeekRex.com and can be heard on the GeekRex podcast. He really loves the Legion of Super-Heroes a lot.